Puzzle 38
Seven months of work went into puzzle 37 before it was finally resolved on 14 March 2015. Puzzle 38 is currently unsolved and no tangible progress has yet been made despite extensive analysis of the text and image. It consists of an image containing 4 lines of Latin text. The Text PRIDIE KALENDAS IANVARIAS MMXV perfer et obdura dolor hic tibi proderit olim TERMINUS The Text in English One possible translation of the text: ON THE DAY BEFORE THE KALENDS OF JANUARY 2015 (Either ''December 31 2014 or December 31, 2015) ''suffer and endure someday this pain will be useful to you THE END Text Analysis Expert Analysis An analysis of the text by MariaCategory:Browsehttp://www.allexperts.com/user.cgi?m=6&catID=2145&expID=23222&qID=5073724, an expert in Latin language and literature: Here’s the correct translation for “Perfer et obdura! Dolor hic tibi proderit olim” which is a quotation from Ovid, Amores, Book III, Poem 11, line 7: “Suffer and endure! Someday this pain will be useful to you” As for the date “PRIDIE KALENDAS IANVARIAS MMXV”, it corresponds to “DECEMBER 31, 2015” (literally “On the day before the Kalends of January”, i.e. December 31, because the Roman Kalends/Calends of January were the first day of the month and then the day before the Kalends of January is December 31). With regard to the date and the word TERMINUS (meaning “THE END”) written in uppercase, it wants to denote the beginning and the end of this puzzle. Lastly, please note that both "IANVARIAS" and "TERMINUS" should have been written with the capital letter V, and then they should have been “IANVARIAS" and "TERMINVS”, since Latin used only the V when something was written in uppercase. In fact, in the early times the Latin alphabet did not distinguish between the vowel and consonant sound of U, but used the letter V with a double value, whereas later the Romans used the small letter “u” for the vowel sound of the V, and the small letter “v” for the consonant sound. In short, in the early times Latin used only the capital letters and thus V for the vowel and consonant sound, but later the small letters were introduced and then "V" continued to be capital letter, while "u" was small letter for the same sound. To conclude, as I've already said, both "IANVARIAS" and "TERMINUS” should have been written with the capital letter V, and then they should have been “ IANVARIAS" and "TERMINVS”, since Latin used only the V when something was written in uppercase. In modern times however we usually write U /u instead of V /v (see IANUARIAS and TERMINUS) and thus this could be the reason why in the puzzle someone wrote TERMINUS instead of TERMINVS.'' ' Translation of words in the quote * 'Perfer '(2nd person singular, present imperative of PERFERO) = '''Suffer * et '''= '''and * obdura '''( 2nd person singular, present imperative of OBDURO) = '''endure * Dolor '''(nominative case, 3rd declension) = '''pain * hic '''(nominative masculine, demonstrative pronoun agreeing with DOLOR) = '''this * tibi '''(dative case of the 2nd person singular pronoun TU) = '''to you * proderit '''(3rd person singular, future of the verb PROSUM) = '''will be useful * olim '''(adverb) = '''someday The Roman Date "PRIDIE KALENDAS IANVARIAS MMXV" The Fasti Theory Main Article The Fasti Theory Fasti is a series of poems/works by Ovid themed after the calendar and the events that occur during a year. The first chapter is named "KALENDAS IANVARIAS", meaning the start of January. Date Conversion List of Probable Dates * 2015-12-31 * 2014-12-31 * 1263-1-7: Our Gregorian calendar equivalent of the Roman date (Julian 1262-12-31) * 2015-2-23 * 2015-2-28 * 2015-1-13 * 2016-1-13 Disambiguating the Date In the comments section of the second Ustream DNBHL Clock video, a clue was left: The doors open @clock Under the clock the day is specified: Monday AM A Latin word for a door is 'janus' or 'ianva', and "Janus is the god of beginnings and transitions, and thereby of gates, doors, doorways, passages and endings."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus The clue might be intended to be read as, "the doors (to the New Year / January) open on Monday morning", for the purpose of disambiguating the date. If New Year's Day falls on a Monday, then the 31st December is a Sunday. There is only one Sunday among the possible dates: 1263-1-7 (= Julian 1262-12-31 = Roman 2015-12-31). The Ovid Quote "perfer et obdura dolor hic tibi proderit olim" Translations: * Suffer and endure! Someday this pain will be useful to you * Bear and endure: This sorrow will one day prove to be for your good. * Endure it and stand firm! This pain in the end will help you:http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/AmoresBkIII.htm#anchor_Toc520536668 Terminus "TERMINUS" Definition: # The end or final point of something. # A boundary or border, or a post or stone marking such a boundary. (A statue or a human bust or an animal carved out of the top of a square pillar; originally used as a boundary marker in ancient Rome.) # (british) The end point of a transportation system, or the town or city in which it is located. # The ultimate goal for which something is done # (initial capital letter) the ancient Roman god of boundaries and landmarks. In Roman religion, '''Terminus' was the god who protected boundary markers; his name was the Latin word for such a marker. Sacrifices were performed to sanctify each boundary stone, and landowners celebrated a festival called the "Terminalia" in Terminus' honor each year on February 23. The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill was thought to have been built over a shrine to Terminus, and he was occasionally identified as an aspect of Jupiter under the name "Jupiter Terminalis".http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminus_%28god%29 Theories * Agnes * The YouTube Riddle * The Stream site lead '''This theory has been busted, since the video has been taken down by youtube for breaching the Terms of service.' Hints * The Subreddits Hints * The Clock Livestreams Image Analysis The Dixel (image artefact) The Font The font has been identified as chalkduster. The image was recreated in Photoshop and revealed small differences: * A space had been inserted before the line 'perfer et obdura'. This may have been done deliberately to align it with the words below, or may have been accidentally copied when the text was copy-pasted. * The letters in the date text do not overlap. This was determined in shiiko's analysis to have been due to manual adjustments to the kerning (letter spacing). Numerical Analysis Extracting numbers Three sets of numbers can be extracted from the text: * A date (in one of 6 possible formats: dmy, ymd, mdy, with 2/4 digit years): e.g. 2015-12-31, 7-1-63, 2-23-2015 * Numbers identifying the location of the quote: Amores Book III Elegy XIa (Line 7 / verse 4) = 3-11, 3-11-7, 3-11-4, 3-11-1-7, etc. * Terminus: if referring to Terminalia it would be February 23rd = 23-2 or 2-23 Interpreting the numbers There are many possible ways to interpret these numbers, beyond looking at events on the dates. For example, MMXV may refer to Ovid's 'M'eta'm'orphoses Book XV, and 31 and 12 (or any of the other possibilities) identify line numbers. Or they may be combined into a string of numbers, and either taken as the answer itself, or grouped and interpreted in another way. Digit strings Combined in the order given, we can generate sequences of numbers like: 31-12-2015-3-11-23-2 This might translate to the alphanumeric code: 31122015311232 (or in roman numerals: XXXIXIIMMXVIIIXIXXIIIII) There are about 2000 such combinations using the most probable suggested dates and all have been tried without success. Incorporating into the quote number the year it was published, 16BC (as possibly implied by the dixel number) has also been tried. (e.g. 31-12-2015-16-3-11-23-2). Further, taking the 11 on the second line of the dixel as 11BC, and filling in the following 3 blank digits as possibly referring to a later published Ovid passage (e.g. 14-12-31-16-3-11-11-2-2-5-2-23), was unsuccessful. As IP addresses Omitting the terminus numbers, a digit sequence is short enough to be an IP address with correctly placed dots (e.g 176.31.63.11). As geographic coordinates Splitting the digit sequence into two parts with at least 4 digits, and interpreting them as (latitude,longitude) pairs (e.g. 31.122015,3.11232), a set of locations was generated. (Google Earth KML file with locations.) The closest major city to any point was Alexandria in Egypt (70 miles due west). This approach was taken further and found a few points of interest: one on the Finnish-Russian border (Peurakankaantie 32, Ilomantsi, Finland), one close to the northern terminus of the Suez Canal, and another in Tainan, Taiwan. References Latest activity